With the recent surge of releases on DVD of late period Hitchcock, including ‘Rear Window’, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ and so forth, it’s too easy to neglect the master’s earlier films.
--Anthony
Spellbound
Directors: Alfred Hitchcock
Producers: David O. Selznick
Writers: Francis Beeding
Features: N/A
Characters:
John Ballantine - Gregory Peck
Dr Petersen - Ingrid Bergman
Dr Murchison - Leo G. Carroll
Genre: Classic
Review:
With the recent surge of releases on DVD of late period Hitchcock, including ‘Rear Window’, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ and so forth, it’s too easy to neglect the master’s earlier films.
Anchor Bay have done us all a service by bringing out a fine selection of middle-period Hitchcock movies, among them ‘Spellbound’, ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Notorious’, and ‘Spellbound’ is representative of their releases — and is a particular joy for me, as it boasts the presence of the wonderful Ingrid Bergman at her most luminous.
Hitchcock made this movie not long after moving from Britain to America, while under contract to the Selznick studio. He felt he lacked vital artistic freedom in this period, yet the films from this period are amongst the most stylish and polished he ever made.
‘Spellbound’, which stars a very young Gregory Peck alongside Bergman, boasts an extraordinarily unrealistic story, based on profound psycho-analytic truths of the time, as distinct from the very different but equally profound psycho-analytic truths of today. At least Hitchcock makes sure we know from the first that the story is based on Freudian analysis — so we’re able to accept and enjoy the film on that basic premise. The surrealist artist Salvador Dali had a big hand in design for the crucial ‘dream’ scene in ‘Spellbound’. The deliriously dizzy Dali manages to make more sense than the seriously disturbed psychiatric theories of the time!
The absurd profundities of the psychological ‘theories’ behind the plot don’t really matter though. because from the absurd plot ingredients of mania, guilt and innocence, Hitchcock managed to construct a taut, fast-moving thriller which leaves you hanging on till the very end — he manages to suspend our disbelief.
We are desperate to believe the frankly unbelievable, as we follow the careening, out-of-control fortunes of Gregory Peck and the radiant Ingrid Bergman. Is he a dangerous criminal, or is he merely insane? Will he use that razor? What’s the significance of the white lines on his bedspread — and why has she gone into a madman’s bedroom in the first place? We hang on every answer, as Hitchcock makes the incredible totally credible.
‘Spellbound’ also boasts one of the finest film scores of any Hitchcock movie, by Miklós Rózsa. Its haunting quality accentuates the dream-like state of much of this film — it helps take us to a special place where dreams become reality; where we move through an uncertain cinematic landscape, half reality, half imaginary.
Every student of suspense should see this movie, and the Anchor Bay transfer gives us the best chance of seeing it in close to pristine condition.
The ‘Anchor Bay’ slick, under ‘Features’, boasts ‘Full-frame Presentation’, which is a pretty strange sort of special feature to boasts of. But Anchor’s transfers are so fine; the blacks are dense, the tonal values so fine, that the lack of special features hardly matters.
It would have been great to have had additional documentary material of the sort provided by Criterion on its fine British-period Hitchcock releases, including ‘The 39 Steps’ and ‘The Lady Vanishes’, but Anchor Bay have done us all a favour by releasing these movies in such pristine condition, and at a pretty reasonable price —$13, last time I checked. The Amazon website shows this DVD currently unavailable, but it’s still listed on Anchor Bay’s home page. Find it while it’s still out there — it is an absolutely indispensable part of the Hitchcock canon.
---Anthony Clarke